Demon Tag
For information on the Demon Tag Ritual, go to the ritual page.
Demon Tag (鬼遊び, oni asobi) is a children's game that appears in Fatal Frame. In the area around Himuro Mansion, this game descended from the Demon Tag Ritual, in which a game of tag was used to choose the next Blinded Maiden and Rope Shrine Maiden. One child is chosen to be the "demon" using the Kagome, Kagome game; the others find places to hide, and the demon has to find and catch them. The first to be caught becomes the next demon, and the last one left is the Princess.[1]
Mikoto Munakata and her friends played this game all around Himuro Mansion, and were photographed by her mother. During another game several days later, all of the children were spirited away.
Game vs. Ritual
While the ritual seems closest to Blind Man's Bluff, the version Mikoto and her friends play is more like a variant of Hide and Seek in which the children hiding run away and try to escape when the demon finds them. In the pictures taken by Yae, the "demon" does not appear to be blindfolded during the game, and the other children all hide in different rooms around the mansion instead of staying in one place.
Misc. Info
The idea of children's games based on local rituals recurs later in the series. Fatal Frame: Deep Crimson Butterfly embellishes the game of tag played by the children in Fatal Frame II, stating that the child caught first becomes a butterfly.[2] In Fatal Frame V, the priest of the Shrine of Dolls describes the rules of old children's games called "Spirited Away" and "Ghost Marriage", which involved hiding dolls.[3]
See Also
References
- ↑ Glossary, Zero Perfect Guide, p156-159. English translation
- ↑ Ghost Gallery, Zero Shinku no Chou Walkthrough and Data Collection Book, p12-21. English translation
- ↑ Shrine of Dolls 3, Fatal Frame V